Review: Vanquish on PC

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After the arrival of the PC version of the first Bayonetta game (XTgamer review), SEGA has recently released another remastered title by Platinum Games, which was also very underrated at its time: we’re speaking, of course, about Vanquish, the adrenalinic and futuristic third-person shooter. This game was released on the same day Fallout: New Vegas came out (which, by the way, is my favourite Fallout game so far) and also only a week before another hyped title would come out, Fable III. It’s easy to see why this game didn’t sell very well, but thanks to the PC and Steam market it has a new chance to shine.

In Vanquish you are equipped with the greatest hi-tech combat armor ever conceived, which also helps to hugely highlight your reflexes, movement and speed. You’ll be fighting hordes of enemies in a literal swarm of bullets coming your way. The developers used a mechanic which reminds us of the old videogame titles: make the game as hard as possible to justify the short length of it. That was always the downside of this title, and sadly that hasn’t changed even in the remastered version: a maximum of 4 hours of gameplay will be enough to have seen all that the game has to offer. It also punishes you very harshly for being reckless: if you abuse your speed powers, you’ll be forced to slow down because the armor has to cooldown; it’s also not advisable to take the enemies full head-on, but to constantly rethink your battle strategy, as the levels always put in different situations that you’ll have to face.

The plot is really stupid so don’t bother trying to understand it too much, it’s only an excuse to justify all the battles that are happening; the gameplay, instead, is amazing even to this day and can still be really hard and frustrating, but only because of your faults and not the game’s. As we’ve also previously seen with Bayonetta, this PC version is once again the best way to experience the title in our opinion: while the consoles versions were forced to stay locked at 30 FPS, the PC version (given that you have a powerful enough system and also configure your settings accordingly) will allow you to experience non-stop 60 FPS with a 4K resolution as well. Keep in mind that the game might also become harder too: of course, even the enemies and the bullets become faster, forcing you to watch your toes even more than before, but the looks and fluidity of the gameplay are so incredibly satisfying that you probably won’t even care about it. Being on PC you can also use the Mouse and Keyboard settings: while the mouse allows you to shoot better, i think that the weapon switching mechanics could have been better, so unless you happen to own a gaming mouse (those with extra configurable buttons) I wouldn’t recommend using them, but of course it’s up to you. I personally found no issues using a classic Xbox 360 controller, which seems also the best gamepad choice.

Conclusion

Once again, SEGA has blessed us with another well done remaster of a game that deserved better recognition for its genius mechanics and fun gameplay, even though the length is a little too short. Should you buy it? To find out the answer, lemme ask you another question first: do you enjoy third person shooters, fast and adrenalic titles and don’t mind, or even enjoy, a hard difficulty? If the answer to all of those questions was “yes”, then don’t even think about it and go grab it on the Steam store! We’ll be looking forward for the next PC version SEGA will decide to release, if it has the same quality as the last ones we’ll be sure to have a blast!

Game Title: Vanquish

Genre: Action

Release Date: 22.10.2010

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This game was provided by the publisher for review purposes, check our review policy for details.